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Session 33 - Comets & Asteroids.
Oral session, Wednesday, January 07
Jefferson,
Emission from five metastable inversion-rotation lines of ammonia were detected from Hale-Bopp in March-April 1997. The lines detected were the (J,K)=(1,1), (2,2), (3,3), (4,4) and (5,5). There was an upper limit for the (6,6) line. These taken with the 100m telescope of the MPIfR in Effelsberg. The FWHP beamsize at the wavelength of the ammonia lines, 1.3 cm, is 43''. These data allowed us to obtain a rotational temperature of 100K\pm 30K. This should be the kinetic temperature of the inner coma at perihelion. The ammonia production rate at perihelion, obtained from these data and the ammonia lifetime is 6.6 10^28 sec^-1.
